by Drew Foote
I rolled to the side, and the sword exited my entrails with an excruciating torrent of black gore. I clasped my hands on my stomach as my infernal essence leaked through my shaking fingers.
Not good at all.
I saw Kalyndriel, still fighting ferociously, as I lay dying upon the bloody dirt. The hollow shell of Raphael lunged toward her, his Angelic face twisted by the serenade of the Void. She spun to the left, drove his sword to the side with a gauntleted fist, and punched her shining lance into chest. The fallen Archangel collapsed in merciful relief.
Was there anything in his eyes, at the end?
Walter and Arcturus rushed to my side, shaking me in desperation. Their voices sounded muddled and far away, a world apart from the one in which I was now bleeding out. I appreciated their concern, but they had best save it for themselves. The day was not over, yet.
I watched with detached awe as Kaly dodged the lightning strikes of Beelzebub’s clawed legs with perfect grace. She darted between the descending talons like a shining promise, her wings erupting in a fountain of white sparks and magnificent power. It might have been the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I was thankful I had the chance to witness it.
Even as I died.
Beelzebub’s chittering mouth gnashed with frustration as the Angel eluded his clumsy blows with elegance. The enormous fly’s chitinous legs struck the ground with brutal force, sending dirt and debris flying. A foreleg fell toward her, and she flung herself to the side.
So beautiful.
The lance rang out like a heavenly comet. Beelzebub screamed and tilted to the side as she severed a leg.
I silently cheered Kaly on as she struck again, this time severing the opposite leg. Beelzebub reeled and stumbled atop four legs, now, howling maddeningly. His faceted eyes flared with fires of insanity.
Kalyndriel darted forward a final time, the harbinger of God’s justice, and she struck a third of the Demonic insect’s legs. The bloated Director crashed to the ground before her, shrieking with despair.
“You fool!” Beelzebub raged. His wings beat feebly against the ground like a crippled beetle. They whirred with a furious droning, the noise filling the entire world.
“You, too, will tire of your eternal chains!”
Kaly’s face was calm as she regarded the fallen monstrosity. There was no hatred in that look, only pity. She would deliver the Prince of Flies’ judgment with magnanimity.
“Perhaps.”
Smoothly, almost tenderly, Kalyndriel drove her lance into the Director’s screaming face. The Fallen Angel’s wings finally stilled. In the depths of my pained haze, I felt such pride.
She would do this. She and Walter would succeed.
Makariel had also finished dispatching the remainder of the Angels and Demons, and they both turned to me. Kaly gasped in alarm when she saw my collapsed form, rushing toward me. She moved as quickly as she did in battle, and it cheered my heart.
“Barnabas!” she cried, kneeling beside my battered body. “What have you done?”
I laughed weakly. The pain was becoming distant now, swimming in and out of focus with the rest of my surroundings. Not much longer, now.
“No … big deal,” I lied. Black ichor sputtered from my lips. My essence leaked through my hands.
“He saved me,” Walter murmured, clutching my arm tightly, trying to compel me to remain in that forsaken world. “He actually saved me.”
“Now, now,” I managed to wheeze. “Don’t … get a big head.” I barked a wracking cough. “I didn’t do it for you; I did it for me.”
I smiled weakly.
“That’s enough!” Kalyndriel urged, her gauntleted hands cradling my limp head. Sorrow filled her eyes, but I noted that, even in the midst of her heart, they were still clear and strong. They were lovely. They were what the world needed.
“You’re going to be all right,” she continued, her voice hoarse. “Arcturus, can you take him somewhere safe?”
Arcturus nodded, his tiny face frightened. Makariel watched in silence, his gaze inscrutable.
Kaly, Walter, and Art huddled over me. Their concern was touching: it warmed a deep place in my blackened heart.
Perhaps now was one of the fleeting moments that made all the suffering worthwhile.
I suspected that it was, and I smiled.
I heard a horrible, wrenching sound. We looked up with dismay as Beelzebub moved his corpulent bulk once more. The Prince of Flies raised himself up weakly on his three remaining legs, his eyes filled with misery. His massive mouth opened, mandibles spread wide.
“Uriel!” Beelzebub screamed.
His shrieking howl resounded through the depths of every plane of existence. He called for Uriel, and Uriel would hear. The Director collapsed once more, truly dead. His black spirit fled the world, bound for parts unknown, even to Angels.
Makariel grinned at Kalyndriel. “I think I’ll be going now,” he chuckled merrily. “I’ll see you around, firefly.”
The Bloody Wind waved four hands at us and disappeared into the ether with a final wink. I rolled my head to the side to look upon the portal to Limbo, which now wept bright orange flame like the corona of a star. Something terrible was coming through.
I felt a detached sense of fear, distant and nagging.
The Fire of God.
The world detonated in a supernova of vicious radiance. The Archangel Uriel burst from Limbo in a maelstrom of burning fury, flame pouring from his massive, gilded armor. The holy firestorm of the Archangel’s heart dragged the surrounding air toward him with hurricane-force winds.
The silver mask of Uriel’s face was smooth, but the inferno of his nature burned with unmatched ferocity. He towered over Stonehenge, a demigod of fire, and he spread his arms wide. The molten wheel affixed to his back spun like an insane carousel.
Silence.
A scalding intake of Angelic breath.
Uriel’s colossal soul exploded from him in a sermon of annihilating brimstone.
Kalyndriel spread her magnificent wings to form a shining canopy of protection over our crouched forms, shielding the sinners from Uriel’s judgment. The Archangel’s flames broke against her pure soul like the ocean upon the shore.
The Avenging Angel grimaced with unbearable pain as she sought to resist the Fire of God. The four of us held hands as his fury cascaded against the bulwark of her wings.
Kalyndriel held strong. A traitor could not judge her, and such tainted fire could not overcome her. She had grown far too strong.
I gave a shuddering laugh as Uriel’s fire continued to pour over us. I beckoned to my friends, and they edged forward under the glowing arc of Kaly’s pinions. They stared down at me with concern.
“Come closer,” I said weakly.
They leaned in closer.
“Walter,” I gasped.
His face was wet with tears as he nodded, his mouth quivering with emotion. “Yes, Barnabas?”
I grasped his delicate hand tightly. “You … you look fucking ridiculous in that dress.”
I turned to Kalyndriel and Arcturus. “Kaly, that armor makes your hips look fat. And, my dearest Art … you are bad at everything.”
I smiled beatifically, and my strength left me. My head fell backward upon the forsaken heath. The scene of my death.
Uriel’s flames suddenly ceased, and Kaly’s eyes shone with both tears and resolve. “Art!” she cried. “Take Barnabas, now! Walter, run for the portal!” She rose, and flung herself toward the Archangel with a howl of determination: a cry of tragic loss.
The last thing I saw before the light faded was Kalyndriel flying forward like a radiant thunderbolt, and Walter dashing toward the portal to Limbo while holding his dress around his knees. Darkness took me with blessed mercy.
Time stopped. Somewhere, I felt a door open. I had seen that door before, in ages past, although I could not remember what lay upon the other side. The glowing doorway spoke to me in a foreign whisper, its words unintelligible, and
something beckoned to me.
I was not afraid; this was how it was supposed to be.
It felt like an old friend.
I walked through the shining doorway.
Chapter 37
The Weight of the World
Existence twisted madly around Walter as he slid through the veil of reality. The gateway between Earth and Limbo trembled at the passage of a creature never meant to tread upon its forbidden path. A human had no place in Limbo.
Walter was disgorged into the chilling mists like an unwanted meal. He collapsed onto the formless ground, gasping and overcome by emotion: Kalyndriel had bought him time, just as Barnabas had given him his life.
They had sacrificed all so that Walter might carry on.
He could not let them down, but he had no idea what to do next. This was fulcrum of their desperate gamble, the moment where hopes became unhinged. He must destroy an incarnation of infinity, an entity that had already killed him once, and he had no clue how. It was laughable.
A profound sense of loss and loneliness descended upon him. He was completely alone, now. His friends, the only true companions he had ever known, lay on the other side of the celestial divide, perhaps dying, perhaps dead.
Perhaps Walter would fail them, just as he had failed his entire life.
Fear blossomed in his soul, its cracks spidering through the windowpane of his heart. The darkness within whispered to him, promising his imminent failure.
He could not possibly succeed at such an impossible task.
Limbo had changed since his last visit, and not for the better. The temperature had plummeted into a frozen embrace. The enveloping mists, previously serene and calm, now seethed turbulently around him. He felt trapped in the heart of a churning thunderstorm, a storm borne of hatred and confusion. Screams filled the crystalline mists, and they clawed at his sanity.
The souls of the lost.
Perdition, itself, tore at the ripped seams of existence. He shrank beneath the awful pressure as he sensed the edges of reality buckle from the strain of struggling souls. Creation trembled at their teeming mass. It was a force to split God’s work asunder.
Walter felt the vitality leak from his new body as though caught in a black vise. The madness of the surrounding darkness, the lost shades of humanity, crawled into his psyche.
Confusion. Anguish. Loss.
He swallowed the heady bouquet of their despair.
He took a deep breath, seeking to calm his jagged nerves. He must not give up; there were too many who depended on him. The fate of existence balanced on Walter’s actions, as ridiculous as that idea would have struck him only a short while ago. He would press on, until he could go no further. That is what Paimon and his friends expected of him.
After an eternity of the trials of the Tower of Knowledge, that is what Walter had come to expect of himself.
Walter could hear something far in the distance, a nightmare song ringing within the dismal murk. The wailing siren’s call was both familiar and terrifying. It was a thing of emptiness that did not belong; a glimpse of alien divinity, and Walter knew it intimately. It called to him, begging him to visit its black parlor once more.
The Empty One. Its time was at hand, and Walter must attend its birth.
Walt prayed. He did not know to whom he prayed, or for what. His prayer contained no words, only emotions. Fear, anger, and despair. Hope, against all odds. It was a mute plea that fell on deaf ears. It was a supplication of need.
Help.
There would be no help for Walter. God could not hear him. God slept atop His ivory tower as humanity died. Their eternal suffering was the silent backdrop to His slumber.
Should he fight for this world, this chaotic hive of tyranny? Walter had glimpsed into the darkness behind the veil of life, witnessed its black, pulsing heart. He had seen the wickedness of existence.
All was ash.
Ashes were never enough. Humanity reached, time and again, for the Apple. They desperately grasped for something real, something holy; something to help them rise above the feral animals they were, at heart. They sought to overcome their low birth: the curse of their mortality.
Was it worth it?
Walter had once thought it was, as had Paimon. They had thought the knowledge worthwhile, but it turned to dust in their mouths. The cruelest joke the world had ever known.
Walter had no answers, and his prayer went unheard.
He set off into the hungry mists. As his body stumbled mechanically forward, buckling beneath the weight of humanity’s despair, his mind retreated within himself. It journeyed the deep roads of the Tower of Knowledge, treading paths long forgotten.
~
The Fall.
Such a simple phrase to describe a thing so massive, so terrible, so pure.
To discard all that you have, to cast it into the flames of eternity, in the search of something greater. Humanity reached for the Apple, Lucifer reached for the Throne, and Uriel reached for the Void. Every creature knelt at the altar of desire, the temple of want.
It always ended in tragedy.
Was it wrong to feel hunger, to long for evolution? If so, it was a defect shared by all, encoded in the basest molecules of existence. Every spark sought to grow. Perhaps it was the extent of one’s ambition that determined the mortality of the sin. Was the Throne of God just one step too far, the blasphemous apex of the continuum of desire?
Life wanted to grow, unconstrained by narrow outlets of destiny.
Walter had seen the Morning Star’s war in Heaven. He witnessed the epic catastrophe through the eyes of both Angel and Demon, felt their pain and hope. He died as they died, slain by their brethren, yet Lucifer’s dream still haunted him: the promise of freedom.
It was a wonderful dream.
Lucifer: the Morning Star. The Archangel of Free Will. How he shone as he raged against his assigned place in the cosmos, the most glorious of God’s children. He was fierce and proud, a towering monstrosity of the ego, but how brightly he had burned. He was majestic.
He was heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
Humanity would be horrified if they realized how much they shared in common with Lucifer. Proud, ambitious, self-centered; humanity could understand Lucifer. He was their guardian Angel.
They were the children of the Morning Star.
Who could understand God, though? Man might have been made in His image, but it was a flawed image reflected from a twisted mirror. Gaze as they might into their own imperfect reflection, humanity could never witness the slightest glimpse of His terrible majesty. He was the Alpha.
God was a behemoth that came from the mists before time, as foreign to the tapestry He wove as He was to the Void. No one could comprehend such a vast consciousness, such a perfect mind. Could a grain of sand know the soul of the ocean that swept over it? The same hand painted both beauty and damnation. How could they truly love that which they could never understand?
God was a monster. He was beyond humanity.
The Morning Star’s bright, shining rebellion had ultimately failed, as all had known it must. None would rise above their designated place. Forever and ever, amen.
~
Walter staggered forward as his elderly body failed. His heart shuddered with the effort of forcing blood through arteries constricted by impossible weight. His skin sagged beneath the icy embrace of the mist. He felt fragments of his soul rip away in the ravenous fog.
The lost souls felt his despair and weakness, pressing down upon him with even greater hunger. They swarmed about him like feeding lampreys. Their cold touch promised obliteration, and their shrieks threatened to drown out all sense of self. That was the true Hell.
Walter would gladly have chosen the lash and the burning sand over that torment. In the dark depths of his heart, Walter just wanted it all to end. Let oblivion come, let it come for them all.
Let the universe die.
The human kept walking, though. His horrified mind continued to seek s
anctuary within the Tower.
~
Time began, and Walter was there.
He watched, wide-eyed in wonder, as the first sun rose over majestic fields laden with dew. He experienced the awe of Adam and Eve, holding one another as a new dawn revealed the untamed bounty of creation before them. The possibilities appeared to be endless.
He knew their joy and delight, but he had also knew their yearning. He felt the desire in their hearts. Walter tasted the sublime rot of the Apple as it filled his mouth with poisonous knowledge. He saw Eden dissolve into ashes.
Uriel took everything from them, but that had been God’s will. Could Uriel, could any of them, do anything other than God’s will?
If there was anything that was absolutely true in life, it was ash. Ash made no promises, it had no expectations. Ash merely was, the remnant of things that had once been. It held the past in its withered heart, and it had no aspirations for the future. Ash was perfect.
Walter wandered the barren wasteland of Earth as the children of Adam and Eve sought to make their way in a world that hated them. They were victimized by time, nature, and each other. They struggled, and then they died … but, from time to time, they also loved one another. It was a momentary spark in the darkness, a flame quickly snuffed by entropy, but it was something.
Was something enough?
Was friendship enough? The bond between ashes soaring atop a black flame. Walter had never known such a thing, such a tiny and fragile bird, until he had already lost everything. Until he had sold his soul. He had found friendship and camaraderie among Angels and Demons, the divine arbiters of a fallen world.
Just as damned as he.
Better late than never.
In the heart of the Tower, Walter had seen humanity rise and fall countless times. His bloodstained hands had slain billions, leaving behind mountains of corpses. His merciless grip had throttled the life from the planet that had sustained him, turning it into an abattoir of filth. He had crushed. He had ruled.
